1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an antenna and, more particularly, to an indoor, low cost, high performance, directional cellular band antenna employing a 90.degree. truncated reflector housing and rectangular dipole elements.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Many types of communications antennas exist in the art. Each various antenna design must provide suitable performance at the particular bandwidths of operation. For cellular telephones, the antenna must effectively receive and transmit signals in the 800-1050 MHz range. Certain building materials may significantly attenuate cellular band signals, thus reducing the ability of the telephone to operate effectively indoors. Therefore, it may be desirable to provide a cellular band antenna within a room or interior space that it electrically connected to an exterior antenna to provide suitable operation of the cellular telephones within the space. Several different requirements drive the design of these types of antennas. These requirements include low cost, ease of manufacture and assembly, ease of installation, ability to be inconspicuously mounted in the space, high performance over the desired bandwidths, suitable front-to-back ratio (FBR), and reliability.
State of the art antennas of this type include triangular dipoles, 90E corner reflector antennas, and radome antennas such as the Allen MicroFill indoor antennas, Model Nos. DB781 and DB791, and the Suhner planar antennas, known to those skilled in the art. However, improvements can be made in the existing antenna art to provide an increase in one or more of the above-described desirable features. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an indoor antenna operable in the cellular band frequency range that includes significant improvements over the state of the art antenna designs.